abracadabra

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. A magical charm or incantation having the power to ward off disease or disaster.

n. Foolish or unintelligible talk.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

interj. Used to indicate that a magic trick or other illusion has been performed.

n. Complicated technicalities, jargon that one does not understand much if at all.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A mystical word or collocation of letters written as in the figure. Worn on an amulet it was supposed to ward off fever. At present the word is used chiefly in jest to denote something without meaning; jargon.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A cabalistic word used in incantations. When written in a manner similar to that shown in the accompanying diagram, so as to be read in different directions, and worn as an amulet, it was supposed to cure certain ailments.

The art, at least in the popular perception, has hardly changed in a century: playing cards; coins; men in their tuxedoes, assisted by scantily clad women and an utterance of "abracadabra," vanishing into thin air.